Naruto: The Bringer of Storms
by I'mma Genius
Summary: My name is Naruto Uzumaki, I know little of affection, love or friendship; but what I do not of it I will not lose, nor go back on my word. So when you strike me down I will rise back up, again and again, until I am not the one falling down anymore; because i will protect my precious ones.


Chapter One: the Enchanting Forest

Naruto Uzumaki could often be seen with a shit eating grin on his face, it was a mask that he spent most of his childhood perfecting. The rest of his childhood however, was spent avoiding his ANBU guards, battalions of variously skilled ninja chasing after him from his pranks and trying to find clueing to who his parents where. But alas either he was truly a no-name orphan whose parents died during the Kyuubi attack, or Jiji was very furrow in erased all connections to his parentage in the village.

By the age of twelve Naruto could humbly say that he had the entire village duped into believing that he was a shit eating prank loving idiot, not that he didn't like pranks, or that he was a genius, but he could say he was just as sharp as Sasuke (A/N: not an exaggeration or underestimation, Naruto's around the same intelligence level as Sasuke). Sometimes he wondered how people could buy his _mask _when he led Shinobi on merry chases once a week.

The age of twelve was also the age that his chakra capacity reached Jonin level, but his education had so many holes in it that he didn't need to fake any of his Academy results. He attributed his education holes to the fact that he spent the first two years of Ninja Academy puzzling out Kanji. Honestly if ninja were supposed to be so clever why didn't they notice that he regularly stole his classmates homework and copied the various answers down.

Actually, his academy grades was probably why everyone bought his idiot mask, he spent so much time catching up throughout the academy that he could barely pass the Academy Graduation tests come his final year. It was also the reason that he registered to take the Graduation test early whenever he could, as the test never changed he figured that if he didn't have the required knowledge he could always use his experience in the exam to pass.

In fact his only redeeming feature when he exited the Academy was that he could probably be inducted into ANBU non-combat division, masks was something you learnt when everyone treated you like dirt as a child. Need and desperation was a far better teacher than anyone he had met, tracking, survival skills, espionage, traps, subtle information gathering skills and a way to shut down emotions.

As for the rest of his ninja skills, well, by the end of the Academy he knew the basic Kawarami, Henge and the kage Bunshin. Not that he used the first one much; he was never terribly good with creating seals.

By the time he reached the Chunin Exams he had solid control over his chakra, as large as it was, and had learnt the Kuchiyose no Jutsu, capable of summoning the Boss toad Gamabunta to bail him out if needed. Although he had yet to discover what they were actually useful for besides taking on large arse Racoon's who had gone slightly insane.

Then he learnt the Rasengan, and the only reason he didn't beat Sasuke was because he had promised Sakura that he would bring him back, and the Kyuubi's chakra was acidic to everyone but him. A Rasengan full of it to the face would probably kill him inside of five minutes.

The three years of training spent with Jiraiya was the most peaceful time in his life, a time where he spent solidifying and catching up on the various Shinobi skills he had neglected in his mad rush to pass the Academy. Jiraiya completely retort him taijutsu, tried to teach him genjutsu, and bashed into his skull the basics of the Sealing Arts. His teacher seemed a bit deflated when he showed no skill in them.

Overall Naruto felt both elated and agitated about his progress, sure by midway through Jiraiya had pronounced him as a Chunin level Shinobi in most aspects. Except for Genjutsu, but he had discovered that if he channelled the Kyuubi's chakra to various part of his body, his eyes, ears and nose they enhanced those parts. For instance, enhancing his eyes let him see through Genjutsu.

One year into his training trip with Jiriaya, the two of them began to focus more on Jinchuuriki related training methods, but at fourteen years old Naruto wasn't all that eager to tap into he Kyuubi's chakra. Not after the fight with Sasuke in the Valley of the End, where the Foreign chakra began to burn and his mind became more animalistic.

Jiraiya said that they had to focus primarily on this because the Kyuubi was dangerous, and they had to understand what they could and couldn't do with it's chakra. But he was still welcome to continue training on the side by himself.

However that only left him to figure out what to teach himself, what to start with. He had a few general ideas for short term training, such as mastering the Rasengan without clones. But his long term ones just included the continued mastery of his taijutsu, continuing the Chakra control exercises that Jiraiya insisted he do and of course eventually learning the what not to do's with the Kyuubi's chakra.

God, he wish he could talk to someone. Then a week after he was given to the wolves, he had an epiphany. He could talk to someone, more specifically his summons, he was sure either Gamatatsu or Gamakichi would have _some _idea of what he could do.

So, summoning the pair, he idly thought what kind of things his summons could do, other than nuke it out with insane raccoons and other such things.

"Yo,"

"What's up Naruto," the other asked, looking faintly surprised that he had been summoned.

"About that, you see, Ero-sannin's said that were going to be training with Kyuubi chakra from now on," Naruto explained, ignoring their bulging eyes. "but he's also said I'm allowed to train other things by myself."

"So what's the problem," Gamatatsu said.

"Well, I don't know what else to train. Sure I could always train to master the Rasengan without a clone," he scratched his head, "but I was hoping to expand my Jutsu repertoire."

"Ohh, well," Gamakichi said contemplating, while rubbing his none existent beard, "You could always start training your elemental affinity," his beard rubbing increased, "or you could train with some of the other toads, a lot of the guys on the mountain want to meet you, something about Minato or something."

"Oh," Naruto said, noting the fact that again he had discovered something that should have been _told _to him by the adult. "What do you mean train with the other toads. Like with Gamabunta," briefly, the image of him perched across various toads appeared in his mind eyes.

"Not exactly like that," Gamakichi sighed, "Jiraiya hasn't told you has he, Fukasaku-jiji expected something like this. Jaraiya's never been one to actually go the full distance with training."

"Look, basically there's around a thousand toads on Mount Myoboku, all of them are talented in different things, you've got your infiltration toads, your Boss toads, the sages," he stressed the last one, "messenger toads, Seal protection toads, and many other toads who all specialise in one thing or another."

"Oh," Naruto blinked, in shock, Sasuke was so going down the next time they fought. "So which type of toad should I master first."

Three weeks later, and five toad types later Naruto was seen writing a letter to Sakura, having discovered that for a high enough price, meaning how many bugs he could find in an hour, messenger toads would bend their strict, only ninja messages rule.

It had been an interesting three weeks, working with toads was something a lot harder than he anticipated, since most of the summons were currently useless to him until he could manipulate at least one element.

He hoped that he could convince Sakura to send him some basic Elemental training exercises through this letter. Since for the toads Elemental manipulation was more instinctive then anything else, and thus they didn't have the basic chakra transformation exercises he needed to begin training his affinity. Whatever it was.

But to wear her down to the point of her handing over the elemental scrolls from the Shinobi library he would have to spend the next month and a half exchanging letters with her, some of them not even mentioning requesting elemental scrolls. Only pocking, prodding pleading and writing about an enormous amount of mindless things to her, which he was sure she was doing on purpose just to torture him. Sakura probably knew she was the only one in the village that would consider sending large amounts of elemental manipulation scrolls to him, she wasn't blind. She knew that most of Konoha still wouldn't stick a limb out for him.

But around a month and a half after his first letter her stance changed abruptly. But during that month and a half he spent his time familiarising himself with various toads, and which ones were interested in fighting with him. It wasn't very hard to convince them, they seemed to worship the very ground that he walked on. None of them would say why, but he'd put it down to the fact that the Fourth was a former summoner. Jiraiya must have told them about how he housed the freeloading demon fox in his stomach, and the toads seem like fairly honourable summons, afterall the few people in the know that didn't hate him treated him with from respect to a healthy dose of admiration. The Toad's just took it one step further.

It was another week before Sakura managed to cave. And it wasn't even because of his letters, apparently Sakura had snuck into the Jonin area of the library and took a peak at the Kage Bunshin. She called it a travesty that he hadn't even thought about training using them, and had eagerly handed over the basic control exercises and a few basic Jutsu for each element.

When she told him that through a letter he asked him if she could have a look into his ancestry, after telling him his suspicions about people hiding it from him she agreed; if only for another thing to do. Between Medical training, hospital work, taijutsu training and the elemental manipulation she had begun she didn't have much besides training. And a quest like this would give her something to focus on when she got bored.

Three weeks after he found out about the Kage Bunshin and Sakura had caved, he'd concluded several things. The first was that the Kage Bunshin training technique was only useful for repetitive steps that needed a similar approach to guess and check. Such as finding the right chakra levels to put into a technique, and experimenting with the right way to get the basic control down for the five basic elements.

But it still helped a lot, because now he knew that he would be capable of using high level wind and water, and the most he could do was produce small amounts of lightning chakra. Earth and Fire he was totally inept at, and he could barely manage the E and D rank jutsu's _with _the Kage Bunshins training technique. It proved that yes the amount of affinities you have isn't tied to the amount of time you had to practice them, more the fact that it was natural talent.

After completing the basic control and basic jutsu's that Sakura had supplied, he sent them back, requesting more water, wind and lightning ones, only to receive the negative. Instead Sakura insisted on only giving ideas from now on, something about Tsunade yelling into her ear about missing scrolls. To which he replied that she was jealous he had three affinities, while she only had her earth and water.

Several letters later he ended up recommending chakra building exercises to be implemented heavily and to start training herself in genjutsu, since at least one of them should be proficient in the art. While she listed various chakra control techniques medic's practise, telling him to improve his atrocious control. Several letters after that Sakura told him she had taken a peak at his file after finding out about the Kage Bunshin. When she told him she didn't care that he housed a freeloader he was extremely glad, when she told him that the previous Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi both shared his last name he was astounded.

The realisation that Kushina Uzumaki was the second Juinchuuriki of the Kyuubi would be the first in great influx of information on his ancestry. Resulting in him learning that he was a survivor of the near extinct Uzumaki clan (when he told Sakura it was her job to help repopulate his clan she had shut down communications for three weeks), and that he was the son of Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage (a point that had made her restart their correspondence).

In the following weeks Naruto was introduced to Fukasaku, who was both a Wind and Lightning Element, as well as one of the fabled Sage's of Mt Myoboku. Who Naruto thought was a myth of legend up to that point. And after meeting to him, he had immediately skipped from more advanced water and wind technique training to Sage training, only to be denied, and pelted on the head by the old toad's cane.

It was worse when he was introduced to Shima, Fukasaku's wife and was both a sage and water elemental, who Jiraiya was mortally afraid of and demanded that he not summon her between the times of seven and eight in the morning, eleven thirty and twenty thirty and six to seven at night. Or he would be strung up by his toads and dipped in oil.

He learned that each toad had seal placed on the top of their mouth at birth and when their chakra capacity grew so did the number of pocket dimensions they could utilise did. It was used as a way to carry large amounts of oil, water, and various other liquids and gasses. The following day, Naruto had his own dimension seal on the top of his mouth, he created two large pocket dimensions, and stored a lakes amount of oil and water in them over the next six months. He could always make more pocket dimesnions to store scrolls, weapons and explosive gasses, but creepy pedophiles had put him off using it for anything else.

It was at the two year mark that Naruto learned Sakura had been denied the post of Jounin, told to gain more chakra and experience instead, and that she had finished mastering both water and earth release. When he found out this, Naruto suggested researching the Mokuton, since their was no evidence it was a kekkai Genki, and the release was incredibly useful for controlling the Kyuubi.

Six months passed, and the training trip clicked down to a year and a half left, Sakura discovered that there was two more ingredients to Mokuton by comparing a failed experiment of Orochimaru's cells. Then comparing them to Tsunade's she discovered that the clone, who was named Tenzo was able to butchurise the Mokuton.

Gaara became the Kazekage. Despite being in different villages, Naruto decided that starting a correspondence with Gaara was worth it. Maybe he could trade some jutsu ideas for some of their wind Jutsu's. He already had a dozen ideas in his head for Gaara, although most of them depended on Gaara not being limited to only sand. But from the mission report he read Gaara could manipulate different types of minerals as well.

His ideas consisted of implementing metal and diamond into his techniques, as well as utilising his affinity more often to make his sand more destructive while conserving chakra. In return Gaara sent a seal diagram that he designed to store a small amount of the Bijuu's chakra, only about the amount inside a one-tailed cloak, but by storing it and mixing his chakra into it slowly Gaara discovered that he could weed out the Bijuu's influence over the chakra. Then it could be used as a substitute for his chakra, Gaara had been using it to imprint large amounts of sand (I'm talking a couple of dozen tonnes) with the chakra in short amounts of time, gaining an advantage in battle.

Using the Seal, Naruto discovered that because he only contained the Yang half of the Kyuubi, he could focus it on an area of his body that had been damaged, like Chidori's through the chest for example, and heal them instantly. Another thing he discovered was that the purified Kyuubi chakra, as he had taken to calling it, could allow him to detect both people and their intentions for miles. It ended all need for sensor training.

At the passing of the last year, Sakura wrote that she had a breakthrough with the Mokuton she was attempting to recreate, apparently she had figured out that two missing _'ingredients' _where Yang chakra and Sage chakra. It prompted him to ask Fukasaku to allow Sakura to begin training in sage mode, but he adviced that it was useless unless she found a way to drastically enhance her chakra capacity. Which she could do, Tsunade had done it in her twenties afterall.

But the method for doing it prompted her to modify her Sensei's Byakugo no In for her own use. since it was originally created to modify the cell reproduction times, not increase her chakra supply. Though the modification would have to include Sage techniques to work, and it would take more than a year for her to redesign the seal and begin using it to expand her chakra pathways.

In the next year they both refined their fighting styles, both undergoing training to become sages under Fukasaku, who took great joy in bopping their heads with his cane. Though Sakura never signed the Toad contract, Fukasaku simply travelled to Konoha once a day for six months and trained Sakura on top of the Godaime's head.


End file.
